


Heart of Gold

by SunFallDown



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Character Study, Dirty Jokes, Friendly Bickering, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Pining Shiro (Voltron), Yeehaw AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2018-08-17
Packaged: 2019-06-28 13:44:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15708423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunFallDown/pseuds/SunFallDown
Summary: Both have their own issues. Both can rely on each other.





	Heart of Gold

**Author's Note:**

> So, this time I wanted to make a fic more centered around their friendship instead. Here, the story starts at some point in between Shiro and Keith meeting and when they started dating, hence the pining Shiro. And my idea is that Shiro and Kinkade both love each other a lot, but at the same time are not going to tolerate each other's shit, and their friendship is 90% friendly bickering asycgauyscgasuy. Other than that, if you follow the Yeehaw AU, I don't think there's anything else to explain?
> 
> Two things to mention tho:   
> 1) Don't quote me on the anatomy things. I've literally already forgotten everything about my anatomy course last year.  
> 2) Thanks Tofu for the Shiro's ass playlist, it helped me get inspiration.

Night was starting to settle in. The apartment felt warm enough at night, even without a heater or stuff like that, so Kinkade and Shiro were settled on Kinkade’s second-hand sofa, wearing only their underwear and a couple of blankets. Shiro had some pink boxers with white hearts. Kinkade thought those were cute.

“So,” Shiro started. “The last branch from the brachial plexus is…”

“Uhh… axillary and musculocutaneous nerves…”

“Wrong. Axillary and radial.”

“Fuck.”

Shiro was reading Kinkade’s flashcards about muscles and their innervations. He had started an anatomy course a while ago and he’d have a quiz in two days, so he had been studying at any chance he got. Shiro wanted to help him out. This was probably the 7th time this session alone when Shiro had mentally asked _‘What… is all this…’_

“And medial portion of the erector spinae muscles?” Shiro continued nonetheless.

“Longissimus.”

“Wrong. Spinallis.”

“God…”

“Can we take a break?” Shiro asked, noticing how tense Kinkade’s shoulders were getting.

Kinkade just sighed. “We took one five minutes ago.”

“And you had five mistakes in those five minutes too,” Shiro countered.

Kinkade fell silent. He still had a lot of details to memorize, and someone had told him to try different study methods, but Shiro did have a point. He was getting a bit tired.

“Alright, let’s take a break.”

“Good!” Shiro beamed, already taking his cell phone out to put on some music.

The Bluetooth speaker started playing, and suddenly all Kinkade could hear was some dude bragging about how he “got a badass bitch bouncing on his dick,” and Kinkade started laughing. Meanwhile, Shiro was pulling a polka dot pillow from behind him and putting it around his neck for extra comfort.

“You need to take a break every now and then, you know that?” Shiro started.

“Oh god, not this again—” Suddenly, an immeasurable amount of dread fell over Kinkade.

“Yes, this again. You were yawning while I was asking you questions. Are you sleeping enough?”

Somewhere along the way of Kinkade starting preparations to enter med school, Shiro had developed a _special voice_ to talk about these specific subjects. Kinkade called it the _‘I-will-physically-force-you-to-take-care-of-yourself-so-try-me-bitch’_ voice.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m trying.”

_“Ryan—”_

“I am, Shiro, really,” Kinkade insisted. “It’s tough, but I’ve tried to get some sleep in between my schedule. Even if it is a ten-minute nap at the library.”

“Good. As you should.” Shiro was full on mother hen mode. “You’re going to be a doctor one day, and you can’t save other people’s lives if you yourself are two steps away from death’s door.”

Kinkade just rolled his eyes. “I will not say anything.”

Shiro noticed again how squared up Kinkade’s shoulders were. He was crossing his arms looking somewhere else.

Shiro bit the inside of his cheek. Seeing Kinkade like this was… not nice.

“Sorry, I went a bit overboard,” he apologized, his metal hand resting over Kinkade’s shoulder. “I just… don’t want you to overwork yourself. I know this is what you’ve been meaning to do with your life, but I’ve been in a similar place and… it’s not nice. Just… take care of yourself, alright?”

Something along Kinkade’s jaw seemed to tense, but just as quickly as that tension came, it faded away. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“Yeah… you’re right. I do need to be a bit cautious.”

A silence fell between them, just at the exact same moment when a Spotify advertisement started playing. Shiro reached out to his cell phone to, at the very least, lower the volume of the music, but then, Kinkade laughed.

“I mean, if I wasn’t here, who would _give you a hand_ when you can’t stop thinking about cowboy?”

 _‘There he is,’_ Shiro thought, rolling his eyes as he let his head fall on Kinkade’s lap. “God, you’re the worst.”

“My pleasure.”

At least Kinkade seemed to be in a better mood now, laughing like nothing had happened and even starting to pet Shiro’s fluff.

“But really,” Kinkade continued. “How’s cowboy? Have you two finally spoken to each other?”

Shiro froze almost instantly, a slight blush giving him away in the worst possible betrayal.

“Ooohhh,” Kinkade cooed like a five-year old. “Deets. _Now_.”

“Nothing happened, just the regular—”

“‘Nothing happened’ my ass, tell me all about it.”

Shiro sighed, rolling his head to the side, almost as if he tried to hide the very evident blush he had going on. “He asked me for a private dance, like the usual, but… we ended up talking. A bit.”

“Holy shit, finally,” Kinkade sighed, petting Shiro’s hair a bit more. “What did you guys talk about?”

“Mainly about his farm. And his animals. He raises some cows and chickens you know… and he has dogs. He showed me pics of them. God, Kin, he’s so _dreamy_ … He gets so happy when he starts talking about his animals, it’s _so cute_ …”

Kinkade rolled his eyes, holding back his groan. “Jesus, you’re definitely hopeless.” He reached for the water bottle on the side table and took a sip before continuing. “Still, congratulations man. Now you’re one step inside his pants.”

“Hey, Ryan,” Shiro started. “… Do you _really_ think Keith likes me?”

Kinkade had to summon all strength he had left just to not groan at that. Somewhere inside his mind, there was some gremlin thinking about the many memes he should make about this situation, but he held himself back. Shiro was being serious. He even used Kinkade’s first name.

“Takashi, friend o’ mine,” Kinkade started, trying his best to fake some shitty cowboy accent, “being completely real… He’s absolutely smitten by you.” He looked down and smiled at Shiro. “He looks exclusively at you in the club, and he smiles at you in the sweetest ways when you’re not looking. And if he wasn’t already head over heels for you, he would end up falling eventually.”

Shiro looked back at him. “You really think so?”

“Cool your tits, dude,” Kinkade said, as he grabbed one of those aforementioned tits and gave it a little squeeze. “Right down here, there’s a noble and loyal heart full of love that would bring any man to his knees. You just gotta take a shot at it.”

Shiro blushed at his pec being grabbed like that, but it didn’t stop him from smiling. A nice, warm smile as a similar warmth spread through his chest, filling him with gratitude.

Yeah, Kinkade wasn’t all that bad as a friend.

“You know,” Shiro started. “You’re grabbing my right pec, and the heart is under the left one.”

Kinkade froze, suddenly looking down to where his hand was.

“Are you fucking—”

“And I have to question the impact of an emotional moment when Nicki Minaj is talking about her sex appeal in the background.”

Kinkade pushed Shiro out of his lap, all the while Shiro was hollering and holding his stomach from laughing so much. “You. Are the fucking. Worst.”

* * *

 

Shiro, once again, had Kinkade’s flashcards in his hands, this time laying stomach-down on a comfortable blanket on the floor of the dressing room at the club before their shift started. Kinkade had his head resting on top of Shiro’s butt as they went through them. And this time, Shiro was wearing the shortest shorts Kinkade had ever seen the chance to witness. At some point they had to stop qualifying as shorts, right?

Shiro liked them, though. He said that Keith loved seeing him in those, so he wore them as often as he could.

“Function of the eosinophils,” Shiro called.

“Assisting the neutrophils against bacteria and getting rid of parasites.” Kinkade’s answer was almost immediate.

“Correct. And masts?”

“Release of histamine as an answer to tissue damage and allergens.”

“Can you imagine being allergic to glitter though?” Shiro derailed himself. “Man, that would be an absolute nightmare.”

“Should I take that as a cue that you want to rest?”

“Please,” Shiro almost begged, as he put the flashcards aside and rested his head on top of his arms. Kinkade agreed on resting for a bit.

It had been a tough run, but Kinkade had been doing really good in his studies so far. He had gotten used to study in different ways according to the course, found a comfortable sleeping schedule and had, overall, managed nicely lately. Shiro couldn’t be prouder.

“You’ve been getting all goods this session,” Shiro praised him.

“Yeah. Histology is really interesting, and I’ve been attending all classes. Biochem is going to kick my ass though.”

“No negative energy when you’re laying on my butt,” Shiro declared. “Positive vibes only. Come on, start telling me good things about biochemistry.”

“Oh, come on Shiro,” Kinkade sighed, but still complied. “Alright… Well, it has a lot to do with cell biology, so I’ve been able to use my notes from that course on it.”

“Good.”

“Uhm… my classmates are nice? I mean, they explain me the details I don’t get, and suggested we study in group. They seem friendly.”

“Very good!”

“Uhh… my teacher is hot? I don’t know, man.”

Shiro instantly froze. Were Kinkade not lying on top of him at that precise moment, he would have jumped out of his skin.

“What?! You never told me that! Give me details, _now_.”

“What details, there is nothing to tell—”

“Kinkade, you never told me you were into _that kind of thing_ ,” Shiro teased, trying his hardest not to burst out laughing.

Kinkade sat up. “I am not about to hear all this _from the cowboy fucker_ nonetheless.”

Shiro followed him suit. “Maybe you could go into his office after class? Ask him some extra questions _as he takes his time with you_?”

“Sorry, can’t hear you, someone’s riding dick and screaming yeehaw too loud for me to listen to you!”

They laughed. They kept at it until they were laughing too much to talk. They slapped each other jokingly and ended it up in a hug.

Kinkade was making progress in his career, and Shiro wore a nice ring around his finger.

Both had come so much more far than initially expected. Shiro was only waiting for the moment his favourite asshole wore a ring in a similar fashion too.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there!!! So, thank you so much for reading, any feedback is gladly received, I literally wrote this on a notebook after class and edited it as I was transcripting it, so yeah, this fic has a bit more heart and effort, at least from my personal appreciation. I hope you guys liked it. And hey, if you would like, please consider following me on some of my social media:
> 
> https://bittersweet-cocoa.tumblr.com/  
> https://twitter.com/sunfalldown
> 
> And send some love to Tofu for their amazing AU, they're 100% deserving of it:  
> https://twitter.com/buffshiro


End file.
